Converting settings - general thoughts

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

This. A thousand times this. When I decided to do my experiment in insanity known as the GURPS Rifts project, I decided three basic things:

1. Do not convert the numbers for the SDC/MDC side of things. A laser pistol is a laser pistol; mega-damage just means better penetration, and hey look! Lasers already have a an Armor Divisor (2) in GURPS.

2. Armor being ablative is how the original system handles things; GURPS doesn't need to be ablative with a hundred points of DR. This doesn't fit the artwork anyway. Vehicle armor being semi-ablative fits the feel; body armor being semi-ablative doesn't.

Yeah, though there is still a matter of scale. I'm looking forward to seeing what Savage Worlds does with their Rifts adaptation - seeing Glitterboys next to Gypsies.

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's also worth contemplating what GURPS can do better than the original rule system with little effort.

In D&D, for example, nonhumanoid races or races that are vastly more powerful than humans are frequently an awkward fit for the rules - but in GURPS, they are not a problem. Similarly, obscure sources of power available within D&D settings are often shoehorned into awkward "prestige classes", while GURPS could do such things far more flexibly.

Or take Numenera - an awesome setting, but player characters are shoehorned into an awkward class/descriptor/focus/level system. In GURPS, on the other hand, you could just pick a bunch of appropriate Power Sources (nanotechnological, biological, whatever), select appropriate Powers (or make up a few new ones of your own) and go wild - that will allow the players to make character concepts that are fully as awesome as the setting!

[ArchonShiva]

Sometimes, a mechanical difference is very important to the feel of the setting; the mistake is to awkwardly emulate the mechanic in GURPS. I recommend either:

1. Use the mechanics side-by-side: I've run Mekton games using GURPS PCs, but all mecha action used Mekton initiative, damage, hit locations, etc. Actual hit rolls and defenses used GURPS skills and dice, however.

2. Look not at the mechanic but at its desired effect on PC and NPC bahaviour, and try for a GURPS-friendly way to accomplish that, without all the cruft that comes with it in the original system.

Two examples using D&D magic:
1. Make spell slots an advantage and use the spell lists unchanged. Saving throws are converted to DX, HT and Will rolls, 5' ranges become 1 yard, and damage is based on something like Thrust(multi-target) or Swing (single target) for ST equal to whatever stands in for IQ+Magery+2xSpell Level.
2. Figure out what you like about D&D magic. Is it the 15-minutes workday? Preselecting spells in the morning? How wild and colorful the spells feel compared to the very tame GURPS magic? Different types of casters with separate lists? Larger area spells? Let's say it's the power and 15-minutes workday: use MP based on IQ+Mageryx5, which regenerate daily - but -1 to spell skill per 5 MP used, to stop channeling everything into the same spell. Powerful alpha strikes, not often.

[GodBeastX]

GURPS magic can be pretty tame. That is one thing I like about D&D.

I need to learn how to make a working corruption system from Horror.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

GURPS magic can be pretty tame. That is one thing I like about D&D.

I need to learn how to make a working corruption system from Horror.

Death Spells, Essential Magic (Pyramid #3-25, page 14-20) and Words of Power are pretty flippin' epic, and should frankly be included in all DF games, or would be if I were running them. I'm stunned that I've never heard of people including Words of Power in a DF game, but I suppose either nobody thought of that, or people became suspicious of handing what amounts to a tactical nuke to the wizards. Still, I love them so, especially when you start working out what someone might do with something like that.

Some examples I came up with:
For Fire:

1. Holocaust: Everywhere within 60 yards is on fire magically for one minute. Thereafter, only flammable places remain on fire. This fire cannot be extinguished except with magical water or some form of dispelling of magic. Additionally, 36 people within earshot become immune to all forms of fire.
2. Privilege of Prometheus: For the next day, nothing within 60 yards of the caster can be lit on fire, even magically, except by the caster himself.
3. Judgment of Prometheus: Everywhere within 360 yards of the speaker falls under a rain of fire that deals 1d-1 damage to everyone in the radius every second for the next minute.
4. Flames of Passion: 36 people within earshot suffer one of the following effects: They fall in love with another, they gain +3 ST and Bad Temper, they gain +6 to a creative skill and the un-controllable urge to create, they increase a “dislike” quirk to a full Intolerance disadvantage and gain Public Speaking at IQ+6. These effects last for 1 day.
5. Forge of Prometheus: One character gains 60 points in advantages related to fire, such as DR against fire, control fire and so on. These advantages last for one day, whereupon they vanish unless the character pays for them.
6. Summon Angel of Fire: Create a Fire Elemental worth 1800 points.

For Meta-Magic:

1. Closing the Eye of God: All mana within a 60 yard radius is suspended. No magic can be cast here ever again.
2. Opening the Eye of God: All mana within a 60 yard radius is improved one level. This works even in a No-Mana zone. Restoration to the average mana rating is permanent, but improve-ments to the mana rating last for 180 days.
3. Silence Falls: all ongoing spells, curses, talismans and such in a 120 yard radius must roll a contest of their spell level vs 36. If they fail, they are dispelled.
4. Divine Seal: An area of 400 square yards becomes a pentagram. No “magical creature” may cross its border and no spells may cross its border.
5. Dominion: The speaker gains control of up to 36 ongoing spells in his vicinity. He may adjust any element of them (so long as he doesn’t exceed any parameters): He may cancel them at will, he may change who their targets are, or the language of any conditional effects.
6. Enlightenment: The speaker gains Magery 10. This lasts for 1 day. For each day the mage maintains the effect, he loses 1 character point, which must go to one of the following disad-vantages: Absent-Minded, Bad Sight, Blindness, Callous, Indecisive, Killjoy, Low Empathy, Mana Susceptibility, No Sense of Humor, Supernatural Features, or Weirdness Magnet. Additionally, 6 random individuals within 360 miles will gain Magery 3 for 1 year and 1 day, whereaupon it vanishes unless they pay for it.

I think that's quite epic enough.

But one of the things I like about GURPS Magic is that it's pretty physics based. I found it frustrating to try to play my DF wizard like a piece of artillery, because all the fighters and archers were just more efficient damage dealers than he was. But for changing the battlefield, rewriting the rules of combat, or solving problems in unusual ways, nobody was better than a wizard, and I really enjoyed that. It's not something that, in my experience, D&D wizards were as good at (but I mostly played 4e and 13th Age)

[fifiste]

As much as I have learned from strolling the DD related forums teh 3/3.5 Wizards are renown for battlefield control and "alternative win" conditions etc. They can be impressive in raw damage department too but the thing the optimized ones are most (in-)famous is circumventing all the normal constraints of battle and logistics, investigations etc. completely.